“At the end of the day, West Virginia may not require us to be clean, but our customers are. So if we want to bring in those jobs – and those are good jobs, those are good-paying jobs … we have to be mindful of what our customers want.”

– Chris Beam, the new president of Appalachian Power, on historic changes in the electric power industry and why his company is not planning to build any more coal-burning power plants, choosing instead to emphasize cleaner sources of power.

For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, Britain’s went a day without receiving any of its power from coal, according to the National Grid, which oversees the nation’s electricity transmission system. On April 21, Britain enjoyed its first continuous...

Americans used more renewable energy in 2016 compared to the previous year, while coal use fell and gas remained essentially flat, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. With prices for photovoltaic panels...

A Canadian utility has committed to phasing out its coal-fired power plants years ahead of deadlines set by the Alberta provincial government. TransAlta CEO Dawn Farrell said at the company’s annual meeting that it will shut some coal units by 2018, while...

Wind power added jobs over nine times faster than the overall U.S. economy in 2016, according to the American Wind Energy Association. According to its “2016 U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report,” more than 8 gigawatts of new wind power were installed for a second...

While wind and solar projects may have benefitted from tax credits, data show that renewable energy will remain highly competitive even when subsidies are gone. The levelized prices for power from utility-scale solar projects (5 megawatts and larger) declined by 73...

An Eastern Kentucky coal mining company has unveiled plans to build what could become the state’s largest solar farm on a reclaimed mountaintop strip mine, promising jobs for displaced coal miners. The Berkeley Energy Group and EDF Renewable Energy are exploring...

“Our statutory duty is to produce electricity at the lowest feasible rate. … We weren’t trying to comply with the Clean Power Plan or anything else. What’s the cheapest way to serve the customer? It turned out to be retiring those coal plants.”

– Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Bill Johnson on how little Donald Trump’s pro-coal policies are likely to affect his utility’s plans. TVA is on track to retire five of its original 11 coal-fired power plants by the end of 2018.

The city of Duluth, Minnesota is embarking on a new $21 million energy initiative geared toward cutting coal consumption by 40 percent. The project was unveiled at a press conference on April 12 held symbolically in an empty coal bin at the city’s coal-burning power...

The utility that’s building two of the newest nuclear reactors in the country is considering abandoning the project after the contractor building them announced it was filing for bankruptcy. Westinghouse Electric Co., the U.S. nuclear unit of Japan’s...

“Market forces are driving a rapid evolution of energy resources, and the current data clearly supports the replacement of the coal in our portfolio with an energy mix that includes more renewables and natural gas as the best, most economical path to a strong energy future for New Mexico.”

– Public Service of New Mexico President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn in a statement regarding the utility’s integrated resource plan, which calls for completely shutting down one of its two biggest coal-fired power plants by 2022 and exiting from coal completely by 2031.

“If you’d told me I’d be working in solar, I would’ve never believed you. I always thought I’d bounce from coal job to coal job until all the mines closed and I had to leave.”

– Former West Virginia coal miner Robert Atkins, who was retrained as a solar technician after being laid off from his coal job and now works as a crew chief overseeing installations for startup developer Solar Holler.

Renewables were the biggest new source of electricity in 2016 as the cost of building new wind and solar farms fell, according to a report published jointly by UN Environment, the Frankfurt School and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Clean energy provided 55 percent of...

Chicago has committed to transitioning the city’s hundreds of municipal buildings to 100 percent renewable energy by 2025, according to a press release from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office. Collectively, city government – including public schools, park facilities,...

With a new 15-year contract to buy power a new wind farm in Pennsylvania, Data storage giant Iron Mountain Inc. is now powering its data center businesses with 100 percent renewable energy. The new contract calls for the company to purchase 25 megawatts from the...

U.S. wind developers plan to invest $96 billion in new wind power projects over the next four years, giving wind the largest pot of investment scheduled its energy competitors, namely gas and solar, according to an SNL Energy analysis of projects in the planning...

Through bipartisan cooperation, the Midwest has become a leader in implementing energy efficiency measures. The region has seen a 225 percent increase in energy efficiency investments since 2008; $1 billion was invested in electricity and natural gas energy efficiency...

With Xcel Energy burning its last coal at a Colorado power plant, two major coal producers have lost a large customer. Xcel retired the unit its Valmont plant in Boulder, Colorado in March in response to a law requiring reductions in nitrogen oxide emissions. Most of...

A solar power project is likely to register a price below 2 cents per kilowatt-hour at some stage during 2017, according to analysis firm GTM Research. As part of its 2017 market forecast, the company suggested that an impending tender round in Saudi Arabia was the...

In a highly symbolic first for the wind industry, a Danish developer won the right to build two large wind projects in the German North Sea – with no government subsidies. Dong Energy, the world’s largest offshore wind developer. Until now, the construction of...

Growth trends in renewables and energy efficiency are starting to be felt in energy markets across the United States. Together, renewables and efficiency will cut the equivalent of 2 billion cubic feet of fossil fuel demand per day by 2020, according Wood Mackenzie....

“Page [Arizona] is ready for a change. … We really have the ability here to capitalize on how beautiful the area is, and the only black eye on this beauty for a long, long time has been that power plant.”

– Twist Thompson, the owner of three restaurants in Page, in reaction to news that owners of the Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal-burning power plant in the West, plan to shut down the plant no later than 2019.

A subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy has unveiled its plans to spend $3.5 billion to bring hundreds of new wind turbines online across the West over the next three years. PacifiCorp, which operates utilities that serve customers in six...

Florida Power and Light has announced that it will add another 1.5 gigawatts of solar PV throughout the state over the next six years as part of a long-term plan filed with state regulators. The expansion will be more than double the the 600 MW of projects that are...

More than a quarter of electricity consumed in March in Texas was supplied by wind power, the biggest share ever for renewables in the Lone Star State, according to a report by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. ERCOT’s monthly Demand and Energy Report...